Beyond Belief: Why the University of Minnesota’s Religious Studies Major is for Everyone

Perhaps the biggest misconception that people have when it comes to religious studies is that it is meant only for the religious. 

“Whether you are religious or not, religion, in explicit and implicit ways, is impacting your life, the lives of those around you, and the way your city and country are organized,” says Nathanael Homewood, associate director of the University of Minnesota Religious Studies Program. “It's about relationships that people have between themselves and other people, between themselves and places, between themselves and history, between themselves and the future. The study of religion is for everyone.”

The Draw to Religious Studies

This universal relevance is exactly what brings a diverse array of students to the program, many of them arriving not with a set of beliefs, but with a set of questions. For students like Hank Sullivan, the major provided a language for a curiosity that had been brewing for years.

Having grown up in a household where religion was questioned but not ignored, Sullivan says that he did not have much context for religious holidays that were celebrated. “When I was a teenager, I became sure that none of it had any point and decided I would be an atheist. I dropped out of college at 18 and lived my life, but as I became more aware of other points of view and had strange experiences that I had no answer for, the curiosity that permeated my house came back full force.”

Sullivan started reading books on death, life, and history, and they all led back to religion in an inexplicable way. “It made me realize that if I wanted to better understand life, love, evil, people, nature, etc., a foundation of understanding religion would be the best route for me to get a crash course,” he says. 

Sophie Dickerman, a student pursuing a strategic communications major with a minor in religious studies, had a similar thirst for understanding the world and why it works the way it does. “I grew up in a semi-religious household, and the principles I was taught as a child shaped how I viewed myself and the world around me,” she recalls. “Losing my faith was profoundly painful, and led me to ask questions about how this could happen, why religion exists, and what is to be done with the pain I felt. Diving into religious studies has, paradoxically, helped me understand the world without religion as a guide, and given back to me the autonomy I felt I had lost when I lost my faith.”

From mortuary science majors who take religious studies classes because they want to better respond to people’s religious sensitivities in moments of pain and death, to business majors who want to know the lives and religions of their multicultural teams, students from many walks of life choose to study religion.

The major also opens up paths to a diverse spectrum of career opportunities in academia, education, law, journalism, non-profits, and many others.  “Almost any future plan that people have on some level is going to bump into, whether they mean to or not, a religiously diverse and plural world,” says Homewood.

Revamping the Major  

The University’s Religious Studies Program was established in 2008. Jim Parente, then CLA’s dean, asked Dr. Calvin Roetzel, who had been chair of the religious studies program at Macalester College for about two decades, to pioneer this program. 

Through the diligent work of Dr. Roetzel and Jeanne Kilde (former director of the Religious Studies Program), the interdisciplinary program grew. It now draws on the expertise of 49 faculty members from 16 different departments and offers courses from many departments in the College of Liberal Arts: history, anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, art history, English, and sociology, to name a few. The areas of faculty research include modern and ancient studies of major world religions in different areas of the world.

“I really appreciate the nature of the program as interdepartmental. I am often in classes with students headed towards all sorts of degrees, but who bring perspectives that I would maybe not get if I were in a closed department,” says Sullivan.  

As a growing program attracting more and more students, the department is currently in the early stages of revamping the curriculum to enhance the interdisciplinary offerings, even beyond CLA, and ensure that students can take courses on a more repeated basis. 

“[The goal] is to create a curriculum that is exciting and analytically creative and adventurous,” says Homewood. 

Now as a professor emeritus, Roetzel has played a big role in supporting this effort through generous gifts to the department. He is particularly excited about expanding the program beyond Christian, Jewish, and Islamic studies. 

“The department is in search of a person in Buddhist studies, which is incredibly important. In the world in which we live, learning to get along and understand each other of the same or different religious traditions is hugely important,” comments Roetzel.

The department is also looking to offer robust resources to students to study religion in a more hands-on way, whether through research projects or learning abroad opportunities where they can learn about religions and how they are practiced in different countries. Some of these opportunities are already in practice. 

“I am currently in Professor Homewood’s class on religion in the Twin Cities, and the site visits we have made to houses of worship that I probably never would have gone to on my own feel like it has really expanded my relationship to a place that I have called home my whole life,” says Sullivan on RELS 3443 - Religious Worlds of the Twin Cities.

In RELS 3001W - Theory and Method in the Study of Religion with Professor Katharine Gerber, director of the Relgious Studies Program, the class supplements scholarly reading with a hands-on ethnographic project with a local religious group of students’ choice. “This multidimensional approach was engaging and left a lasting impact on the way I think about the world,” says Dickerman.

Roetzel’s contributions to the department also helped establish the Roetzel Family Lecture Series. The annual lectures keep religious scholars, students, and the public updated on contemporary religious scholarship and interpretations. The goal is to share academic insights about religious studies, biblical criticism, and cultural understanding. 

It has always been important to [Roetzel] that religious studies be a sustainable and important force at the University for the study of religion, which he has obviously dedicated his whole life to, and is absolutely adamant in the belief that there's never been a more important time to study religion,” says Homewood. 

A Tool to Understand Past & Current Politics

For Roetzel, the value of religious studies comes in broadening one’s exposure to the world. “The whole idea of thinking that you're living in a concrete country that is just walled off from cultures of other civilizations is doomed,” he says.

For example, Roetzel claims that politicians often lose votes when their campaigns fail to reflect the religious diversity of their electorate. To build connections with people, it is important to understand their values, history, and perspectives. 

At a time of trade turmoil, wars, ethnic cleansing, and tight border controls, the timeliness of religious studies becomes even more stark: providing historically accurate information that is free from dogma or political agenda. 

“Now, with so much historically inaccurate appeal to religion to use it as a power, a force of power, for domination or exclusivity, I think it just makes the case all the more important that we have accurate historical information that is broad and sweeping and is aware of the differences and strengths of different religious traditions,” says Roetzel. 

Ultimately, the "renaissance" of the University of Minnesota’s Religious Studies program reflects a growing realization: to understand the world, we need to understand what moves the people within it. Whether it is finding answers to life’s "strange experiences" or navigating the values of our community, the major provides the historical and cultural literacy required for the modern age. In a world often divided by dogma and misinformation, these students are proving that the study of religion isn't just an academic pursuit—it is an essential tool for building a more empathetic and accurately informed future.

This story was written by Anushka Raychaudhuri, an undergraduate student in CLA.